May 24, 2024 Coats Museum News
Students were out of school; farmers were likely in the hot tobacco fields while some folks were traveling the roads on vacations. In Coats, what were the conversations being heard around the dinner tables, in grocery stores and restaurants or on the streets? Were they about the torturing heat, lack of rain or was it about the annexation ordinance that has been adopted by the town of Coats on May 13, 1993?
The process of reviewing that ordinance had begun before the Superior Court Judge Don Smith. He had to decide whether the annexation ordinance met all the requirements set forth in the General Statutes of N.C. governing the annexation of property by municipalities.
Well known for his skill in the field of law, Ed Bain of Lillington represented the residents fighting annexation. Walter Weeks and Nelson Currin led the group. There were four areas which had been annexed and were referred to as the following: (1) Southwestern Annexation Project in the area south and west of the town along the N.C. Highway 55, S.R. 2010, Crawford Road, and Washington Street Extension, and N.C. Highway 27 (2) East Area A situated east of town and lying along both sides of S.R. 1700 and S.R. 1701 including the Langdon Pine Park Subdivision (3). East Area B, a piece of property that was surrounded by the Hunter’s Run Subdivision (4) East Area C was on the east side of S.R. 1700 and adjoined the Hunter’s Run Subdivision (Daily Record July 20, 1994).
Exciting news came to Johnson Road where Cathy Charlene Johnson lived. Cathy was honored for her work with the 1993 State Employee Combined Campaign, which raised money for non-profit organizations. Commissioner Jim Graham presented the award to Cathy who was an administrative service consultant for the N.C. Dept. of Agriculture (Daily Record July 20, 1994).
How many of you remember Earl Denning? If you do, many memories of him are unforgettable and surely bring a smile to your face. This writer has many. Earl had two sides to his personality as I witnessed him- a very serious one and a comical one. He served on the Coats School Advisory Board and I distinctly remember at one graduation ceremony he spoke to the parents and seniors. He reminded the parents of the things that they would miss about their graduates after they had left home to fly on their own. One comment he mentioned was that of a child licking his fingers after running them around the icing on a freshly iced cake and for some reason that memory has always stayed with me. Maybe it was that I paralleled it with the good times my friends and I had taking cake decorating under Earl’s wife Diane and could imagine his son Trace doing just that to one of Diane’s decorated cakes.
After I stopped teaching, I volunteered at the Coats Museum and developed friendships with many who had been around much longer than I and had some valuable lessons for me to cultivate to carry on and help grow the Coats Museum. One of those individuals was Christine Akerman Parrish. We spent more hours than one can imagine planning and opening the museum to over 24 different topics and displays to help us discover what was available out there that could be incorporated into a larger and better museum.
One volunteer my age was Earl Denning. He was always stopping by the museum to see if we needed anything to help out with the displays and I distinctly recall that we had used up all our straight pins and needed more. He quickly volunteered to go get some and came back with, not a little box, but a huge roll of straight pins that I am almost sure we have never used all of them.
I could write an entire column on Earl Denning but for this column you will read that he had made the news for one of his many amazing ideas. Earl was spotted cutting grass with his latest Invention. He had combined three push lawn movers and his riding lawn mower to make a grass-cutting machine with a 26 HP and a 104 inch cut.
The Wake Community College instructor was also known to have built an ultralite to fly over the houses and fields in the Coats area. The noisy machine had caused many to stop what they were doing to look into the sky until the noisy machine faded into the distance Daily Record July 21, 1994).
If the death of a child compares to the death of a spouse, I can only imagine the pain that the Robert and Jeanette Stewart family is feeling for the loss of their Robbie Pleasant. When other individuals read his name on the memorial list for the Coats Museum Endowment, I too, hope they have sweet memories of the Robbie they loved.
Students were out of school; farmers were likely in the hot tobacco fields while some folks were traveling the roads on vacations. In Coats, what were the conversations being heard around the dinner tables, in grocery stores and restaurants or on the streets? Were they about the torturing heat, lack of rain or was it about the annexation ordinance that has been adopted by the town of Coats on May 13, 1993?
The process of reviewing that ordinance had begun before the Superior Court Judge Don Smith. He had to decide whether the annexation ordinance met all the requirements set forth in the General Statutes of N.C. governing the annexation of property by municipalities.
Well known for his skill in the field of law, Ed Bain of Lillington represented the residents fighting annexation. Walter Weeks and Nelson Currin led the group. There were four areas which had been annexed and were referred to as the following: (1) Southwestern Annexation Project in the area south and west of the town along the N.C. Highway 55, S.R. 2010, Crawford Road, and Washington Street Extension, and N.C. Highway 27 (2) East Area A situated east of town and lying along both sides of S.R. 1700 and S.R. 1701 including the Langdon Pine Park Subdivision (3). East Area B, a piece of property that was surrounded by the Hunter’s Run Subdivision (4) East Area C was on the east side of S.R. 1700 and adjoined the Hunter’s Run Subdivision (Daily Record July 20, 1994).
Exciting news came to Johnson Road where Cathy Charlene Johnson lived. Cathy was honored for her work with the 1993 State Employee Combined Campaign, which raised money for non-profit organizations. Commissioner Jim Graham presented the award to Cathy who was an administrative service consultant for the N.C. Dept. of Agriculture (Daily Record July 20, 1994).
How many of you remember Earl Denning? If you do, many memories of him are unforgettable and surely bring a smile to your face. This writer has many. Earl had two sides to his personality as I witnessed him- a very serious one and a comical one. He served on the Coats School Advisory Board and I distinctly remember at one graduation ceremony he spoke to the parents and seniors. He reminded the parents of the things that they would miss about their graduates after they had left home to fly on their own. One comment he mentioned was that of a child licking his fingers after running them around the icing on a freshly iced cake and for some reason that memory has always stayed with me. Maybe it was that I paralleled it with the good times my friends and I had taking cake decorating under Earl’s wife Diane and could imagine his son Trace doing just that to one of Diane’s decorated cakes.
After I stopped teaching, I volunteered at the Coats Museum and developed friendships with many who had been around much longer than I and had some valuable lessons for me to cultivate to carry on and help grow the Coats Museum. One of those individuals was Christine Akerman Parrish. We spent more hours than one can imagine planning and opening the museum to over 24 different topics and displays to help us discover what was available out there that could be incorporated into a larger and better museum.
One volunteer my age was Earl Denning. He was always stopping by the museum to see if we needed anything to help out with the displays and I distinctly recall that we had used up all our straight pins and needed more. He quickly volunteered to go get some and came back with, not a little box, but a huge roll of straight pins that I am almost sure we have never used all of them.
I could write an entire column on Earl Denning but for this column you will read that he had made the news for one of his many amazing ideas. Earl was spotted cutting grass with his latest Invention. He had combined three push lawn movers and his riding lawn mower to make a grass-cutting machine with a 26 HP and a 104 inch cut.
The Wake Community College instructor was also known to have built an ultralite to fly over the houses and fields in the Coats area. The noisy machine had caused many to stop what they were doing to look into the sky until the noisy machine faded into the distance Daily Record July 21, 1994).
If the death of a child compares to the death of a spouse, I can only imagine the pain that the Robert and Jeanette Stewart family is feeling for the loss of their Robbie Pleasant. When other individuals read his name on the memorial list for the Coats Museum Endowment, I too, hope they have sweet memories of the Robbie they loved.